


The genin was EXPLODING!

by sweetheart35



Category: Naruto
Genre: Characters Tagged As They Appear, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Sporadic Updates, canon-typical levels of violence against children, takes place almost directly after Tsunade becomes hokage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 14:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11579718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetheart35/pseuds/sweetheart35
Summary: Have you taught an exploding genin before, Hokage-sama?!---In which Tsunade assigns Raidou a genin, Raidou didn't sign up for any of this and I put way too much thought into a story that was supposed to be crack-ish one-shot but somehow developed a plot with a sucky title.





	The genin was EXPLODING!

D-ranks, Raidou would admit, were mind-numbingly boring. Especially for the genin tasked with carrying them out. That being said, they also allowed him to disappear for a few hours and read or brush up on some techniques or basically do whatever as long as he was in sensing range of his genin and fast enough to react if something were to happen while they were outside the village walls (Doubtful, considering they were supposed to be in a time of peace and they were less than a mile away. But Raidou believed in being prepared.).

Tsunade had denied his request to remain on as her bodyguard; not, she assured him, because she didn’t trust his abilities. But she believed he would be better served passing some of his skills on to Konoha’s next generation. And so, despite his objections that putting him in charge of children was a terrible idea, two weeks later after all the jounin-sensei who were taking genin were in the village at the same time, he had found himself in a brainstorming session with them and getting tips on how to put together lesson plans. Three weeks after that, he was meeting his first (and hopefully only) genin team.

His team, he was happy to say, weren’t special in the slightest. They literally came straight from the middle of the class, so their abilities were all more or less on par with each other. There weren’t any clan kids, so Raidou didn’t have to worry about politics or other duties interfering with training or missions. He just had to keep the little brats alive until the chunin exams and they’d either get promoted or die and either way they wouldn’t be his problem anymore.

Matsuda Tami was Kurenai’s niece, but she didn’t seem to share any of her aunt’s talent for genjutsu, which he personally found to be a shame. He could’ve gotten her started on becoming a decent spy, but the girl seemed far more inclined towards explosives, if the amount of exploding tags he’d confiscated from her the day of their first mission was any indication. Whatever. Raidou could work with that. He’d had to blow a few things up in his time.

Komon Ichiro was just as loud as Tami and between the two of them he usually had a small headache by the end of the day. Thankfully he didn’t seem quite so inclined to blow things up, but Raidou suspected that was more because he was from a civilian family and didn’t have access to the same materials Tami did and not from a lack of interest.

The last member of his team was Okita Kimiko. Raidou had been surprised at having two kunoichi on his team, but he was almost disgustingly grateful for her. So far, there weren’t any developing rivalries, so all three of his genin could work together and he didn’t need to worry about one getting left behind. But most importantly, Kimiko was the exact opposite of her teammates. Where they were loud and boisterous, she was quiet. Where they would charge head first into an unknown situation, she would hang back. The tall, blond girl was a calming influence on Tami and Ichiro and Raidou felt comfortable leaving her in charge of the other two while he checked on some of the traps further out to make sure they were still in working order.

The three of them were gathering herbs for the hospital right outside the village. How much trouble could they possibly get into, he reasoned, replacing some wire in one of the traps that looked to be getting a bit brittle. He made a mental note to recommend maintenance head out this way a little more often when a shrill scream pierced the air and Tami’s chakra started flaring wildly.

Raidou was already moving when a moment later Ichiro and Kimiko’s chakra started flaring just as badly and Ichiro’s voice pierced the air.

“Sensei!  _ Sensei! She’s on fire! Tami’s on fire!” _ Ichiro shrieked and Raidou arrived just in time to see Kimiko throw the water from her small hip flask onto Tami, who was screaming and  _ holy shit she really was on fire _ .

“Kimiko,  _ move! _ ” Raidou bellowed and Kimiko shot away from Tami, grabbing Ichiro and throwing them out of the way of the water shockwave Raidou blasted at Tami. It hit her dead on and sent her crashing through the trees, steam billowing where she’d been only a moment before. “Kimiko, head for the hospital and tell them we need a burn medic stat! Ichiro, come with me!” He didn’t wait to see their reactions, instead taking off in the direction Tami had gone flying, but he could sense Kimiko’s chakra moving away towards the village and Ichiro following behind him.

Raidou braced himself for the sight of Tami’s charred body. Her entire body had been engulfed. If she were alive, at best she would be disfigured all over her body and crippled for the rest of her life if she survived. What had  _ happened? _ He hadn’t sensed anyone but his students’ chakra in the vicinity. How had anyone -

“What the  _ hell?” _ Raidou pulled up short, staring at Tami, who was hunched over and crying hysterically, but otherwise appeared to completely uninjured...aside from the scrapes and bruises she’d acquired from being launched through the forest.

“Oh, geez!” Ichiro yelped, reeling backwards and clamping a hand over his eyes. “Tami!” And then Raidou, who’d been so busy cataloging his student’s injuries, realized that while  _ Tami _ had survived the flames that had mysteriously engulfed her body, her clothes had not. Sighing, Raidou reached over and smacked the back of Ichiro’s head before wrestling the boy’s jacket off of him and ignoring his indignant squawks. He couldn’t sense any enemies, but he wasn’t going to strip out of his protection and the sooner the kids realized sometimes you had to deal with some awkward nudity in the field, the better.

“What happened?” He demanded, draping Ichiro’s jacket over Tami, who clutched it like a lifeline and seemed to finally be getting herself under control, even if she was still hiccuping. Raidou turned to Ichiro, who was looking shame-faced.

“Last night after training, the three of us went out to dinner,” he mumbled, staring at the ground. Raidou cleared his throat pointedly. Ichiro blanched, but straightened and attempted to meet Raidou’s gaze. “We started talking about those stories that parents will tell their kids to make them behave when they’re little. You know, the ghost in the forest that will take you away if you don’t go to sleep? That kinda thing.” He cleared his throat, shuffling his feet awkwardly. “Tami got a little freaked out yesterday -”

“Did not,” Tami grumbled mutinously from her position on the ground. She slipped her arms through the jacket sleeves and zipped it up, covering herself more fully. Ichiro’s eyes darted to her before skittering away quickly, his face turning red.

“Tami, would you like to continue?” Raidou asked mildly.

“...No, sensei,” she muttered, subsiding.

“So I thought it’d be funny to try and scare her,” Ichiro continued. “And I jumped out at her and then...and then she was on fire.” Ichiro’s voice took on a mildly disbelieving tone, as if he couldn’t actually believe what was coming out of his mouth. Raidou couldn’t really blame him.

Raidou was saved from answering by the arrival of an entire platoon of medics, jounin and on-duty guards. Kimiko plastered herself to Raidou’s side as the medics swarmed Tami and the guards spread out looking for attackers. The jounin milled around, peering interestedly at Tami, who was starting to shrink in on herself from all the attention.

“Namiashi-sensei, I was under the impression that your genin was on fire,” one of the medics said pointedly and the chatter in the clearing ceased as everyone either looked at Raidou or the aforementioned genin. Ichiro and Kimiko slowly slunk behind Raidou.

“She was,” Raidou said calmly, though he could understand their skepticism. Tami, aside from her lack of clothes, didn’t look like she’d been set on fire. Even her hair was unburnt, even if it was wet and tangled with twigs sticking out of it. “I performed a water jutsu -”

“And yet there are no burns on her body,” the medic cut him off. Ichiro bristled behind him.

“He’s telling the truth!” He burst out. “I scared Tami and she - she -” He made a strange gesture with his hand, apparently trying to convey whatever it was he wanted to say.

“She combusted,” Kimiko cut in quietly, peering around Raidou, though not quite willing to move away from the implied protection his presence offered. Everyone looked at Tami again, who shrugged. Someone had found an additional covering for her and the medics seemed to be finishing up with their examination. “The ashes from her clothing are back where we originally started.” She pointed helpfully. Two of the jounin took off. Raidou mentally tagged them as Ao and a Hyuuga.

“Right,” the medic said sharply. “Well, Namiashi-sensei, I’d like to move Tami-chan back to the hospital and perform additional tests. I think we can safely assume that no enemy-nin set her on fire.” Raidou ignored the looks of disappointment that flashed across most of his fellow jounin’s faces. Must’ve been a slow day in the missions office. “Once there, I’ll have her parents sent for. Perhaps they can shed some light on this rather fascinating turn of events.” The medic peered at Tami. “Er...you  _ do _ have parents, don’t you? Or guardians of some sort?” Tami nodded mutely. “Good. Well then, Akari-san here will help you back to the village...up you go, that’s a girl. How in the world did you wind up with so many twigs in your hair?”

\---

Raidou wasn’t surprised at all when they were shown to an examination room and Tsunade breezed in halfway through the medic’s, identified as Saito Machi, exam. Spontaneously combusting genin seemed to personally demand the Hokage’s attention. Tami, who had apparently recovered from her ordeal and was talking Saito’s ear off while the woman bore it patiently, abruptly cut off, her eyes going wide. Raidou stood up and bowed and Tami quickly copied him, all but plastering herself to his side.

“I see you’re adapting to your new role quite well, Raidou,” she said, prodding Tami away from him and back up on the table, her hands glowing green. “Saito, what have you found?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Saito answered. “Her chakra coils are a little overextended, but other than that I can’t find anything wrong with her.”

“Hmm.” Tsunade hummed in acknowledgement and stepped back, eyes narrowed. Tami squirmed “And your assessment?” 

Saito sighed. “Hokage-sama, it really does appear that she...set herself on fire.”

“I would have to agree.” She turned to Tami. “Does your family have a bloodline limit or a history of this happening?” 

Tami shrugged. “We have a bloodline but Mom said it’s really rare. No one’s activated it in a few generations,” she answered. “Not since one of our great-great uncles twice removed or something like that. Mom can tell you better.” 

Raidou stared. So theoretically, his genin had a bloodline limit that allowed her to set herself on fire.

“How,” he asked. “Is that even  _ remotely _ useful?” 

Tami scowled, clearly offended, but before she could say anything there was a brief knock on the door and Kimiko and Ichiro escorted her mother through the door.

\---

For the record, it wasn’t useful. At all. Raidou had to bring spare changes of clothing to training because every time she  _ sneezed _ she was on fire.

At least her mother assured him she wouldn’t be doing any other weird things. Probably.

\---

She did other weird things. 

“I  _ did not _ sign up for this!” Raidou slammed his fist down on the desk. Tsunade didn’t even blink as she deftly moved her sake cup off the desk so it didn’t spill. Shizune sighed quietly and tried to use the distraction to hide the sake bottle. Kakashi’s former genin, Sakura or something, watched wide-eyed from the desk she was working at.

“No, you didn’t,” she agreed amiably. “But what, specifically, did you not agree to?” A lot of things, as a matter of fact. In the week and a half since the Forest Incident Where I Lost Control of My Life, as Raidou was privately calling it, Tami caught on fire at least twice every session, he’d been gifted fire extinguishers by at least four other snickering jounin-sensei (and to his horror, he’d actually had to use them), Kakashi had nearly gotten him put on the sex offender registry (some quick intervention by Tsunade had calmed the entire thing down before it could blow up in everyone’s faces, but she’d still given him pamphlets about mental disorders and seeking help. Raidou had an assassination planned for one Mr. Ukki as soon as Kakashi was out of the village), and Ichiro and Kimiko had been asking if they could have a chakra enhanced water balloon fight with the other genin teams (they argued it would help Tami with chakra control and give them some fighting experience outside of sparring, and since it was a water balloon fight no one would get seriously injured. Raidou suspected they just wanted to show off their flaming teammate).

But this? This was too much.

“She  _ chewed through a training post,” _ he hissed. “She was supposed to learn how to get out of knots and her first response was to  _ chew through the wood!” _ Shizune and Iruka were gaping. “And then she  _ chucked it across the grounds. _ She can barely do fifty push-ups and she’s throwing eighty pound posts like they’re kittens!” 

Iruka mouthed  _ kittens _ to himself, but Raidou ignored him. Tsunade’s eyes had lit up like a child’s at New Year’s festival and Raidou did not want her encouraging Tami’s new found strength and destructive tendencies until he could figure out how to get her to use it on purpose, or even better, foist her off on someone else. If he could get her teammates to go with her, he’d be even happier. Kakashi needed a new genin team, right? Second chances and all that. Either way, he’d deal with the academy teacher later because there was  _ no way he didn’t know. _

“She threw it?” She asked, leaning forward. “Just picked it up out of the ground and threw it?”

“Hokage-sama, I think we were discussing -” He started, fully intending to steer the conversation towards reassignment when Tsunade cut him off.

“Your outstanding capabilities as a jounin-sensei,” she said.

What.

“What?” Tsunade nodded to herself.

“Your adaptability towards this whole situation is highly commendable,” she said. And Raidou did not want to hear that. No. No, no, no, no, no. “Not many jounin-sensei could handle an activation like this with the same amount of level-headedness you’ve displayed.”

“I’m not level-headed,” Raidou blurted desperately.

“I’ve been looking over your team’s files,” Tsunade continued as though he hadn’t spoken, flipping one open and tapping a finger against the top page. “Your team has been progressing significantly since you took them on. Well done.”

“Thank you,” Raidou said automatically. “Hokage -”

“Your genin team couldn’t be in more capable hands. Now, did your genin complete the exercise you set her?”

“I...yes,” Raidou said, confused at the sudden turn in the conversation. “She did.”

“Well then, I’d consider the exercise a success,” Tsunade said. “Now get out of my office. I have paperwork.” Raidou bowed automatically and headed for the door, wondering when the conversation had gone so drastically off-track.

\---

“So…” Ichiro began, kicking his legs idly over the side of the bridge as they waited for Sensei to get back from the Hokage Tower. The three of them were sitting side by side on the bridge, their feet dangling. Tami was still picking bits of wood from her teeth, looking sheepish. Kimiko was watching her carefully from the corner of her eye. “Is your mom’s family...descended from beavers or something?” Tami shrugged, wincing and tossing another chip into the river.

“I dunno,” she said. “Could be. Maybe our family used to be similar to Inuzukas, but with beavers instead of dogs.”

“What I can’t figure out,” Kimiko chimed in, watching the water. “Is why you didn’t just chew through the rope.”

“Yeah, that’s a good point!” Ichiro twisted around to peer at Tami closely. “Why didn’t you do that?” 

Tami scowled, shoving his face away. “Get out of my face, stupid!” 

Ichiro glowered. “Who’re you calling stupid?” He demanded. 

“You, stupid!”

“I’ll show you -”

“Ichiro, perhaps aggravating Tami would be a bad idea until she learns how to not set herself on fire,” Kimiko interrupted. Ichiro grumbled but subsided. A minute later he perked back up.

“Why didn’t you chew through the rope?” He asked. Tami flushed bright red and mumbled something incoherent under her breath.

\---

Amano Inara was Raidou’s first choice to go to. He found her in the library near the back, hunched over a pile of scrolls. He glanced over them as he sat down beside her and made a face. She was studying  _ history _ scrolls. But as long as Raidou could remember, she’d always been into studying. Inara liked knowing things for the sake of knowing.

“Inara,” he hissed, casting a glance furtively over his shoulder. Nara Raku was a retired shinobi with the sharpest ears Raidou had ever encountered and heaven save the poor fools who disrupted the hushed silence of her sacred library. “ _ Inara.” _

“ _ What? _ ” She demanded, throwing her own glance over her shoulder, before leveling a glare at him. Oops. Raidou thought quickly, trying to decide the best way to get back Inara’s good side. He needed her cooperation, which meant probably showing some interest in what she was reading, and maybe Raidou should’ve considered bringing food but -

“What are you reading?” He whispered, hoping that would work. If anything, Inara’s glare got frostier, blue eyes flashing behind her glasses.

“Namiashi, I swear on every Hokage, either get to the point or shut up because if I get thrown out because you wanted to have a chat I will rip your tongue out and  _ strangle you with it,”  _ she snarled. Raidou blinked.

“Did you just get back from a mission?” He asked, still taking care to keep an eye out for Raku.

“Yes,” Inara grumbled. “This morning at four. And it was a bad one, so if you don’t mind…” She trailed off pointedly and bent back over her scrolls, her dark hair falling over her shoulder and obscuring her face. Raidou didn’t move. That explained why she wasn’t with her own genin. Raidou personally wouldn’t have gone to a library to decompress, but he supposed it was a rather solitary location and there wasn’t a large chance of being disturbed.

After a few minutes of silence, Inara finally sighed impatiently and looked back up. Raidou grinned dopily. This was like when they were teenagers and Raidou had had the biggest crush on her. She’d finally consented to go out with him after about a month of persistent negotiating (Genma said it was begging. He may have been right. Raidou didn’t remember having a whole lot of shame when he was fifteen) on his part and then promptly dumped him on his ass about three months later. Raidou was probably still a little bit in love.

“Wipe that smile off your face,” she growled. “What do you want?”

“Switch genin teams with me,” he said. Usually he would never try and go around the Hokage like this but Raidou was  _ desperate. _ He didn’t know if Tami had anymore powers but if she did, Raidou didn’t want to know. And anyone he switched with would at least have a warning. Unlike Raidou.

“No.” She didn’t even hesitate. Raidou tried not to be too disheartened.

“C’mon, please?” He begged. 

“Absolutely not,” Inara snapped. “I heard all about your brats this morning when I turned in my report. I am not taking on a spontaneously combusting genin team -”

“It’s just the one genin,” he whispered, barely audible. He could sense Raku about three stacks over. “And she’s getting better.”

“Then you keep her,” Inara retorted. Her fingers were twitching. Raidou leaned away slightly. “She’s your genin, therefore she’s your problem.”

“But you’re much better with kids than I am,” he pleaded. “Remember that one mission with the trafficking ring, where we had to bust the kids out and get them all home? The kids hated me.” Inara blew out an exasperated breath.

“You refused to take off that ridiculous mask and it scared them,” she argued.

“My ANBU mask was not ridiculous!”

“It wasn’t your ANBU mask! It was that stupid demon mask you’d picked up in the market the day before while trying to find information on them because you were going through that stupid mask phase.”

“Right,” Raidou muttered. He’d forgotten about that. Inara, it seemed, had not.

“And besides,” she continued, loftily. “I’ve put too much work into my genin, just to pass them off to you and have you mess them up.”

“They would be fine,” Raidou protested, offended. “I’m a great teacher!” Inara arched one perfectly sculpted eyebrow at him.

“The sex offender registry, Raidou?” She asked pointedly and Raidou barely resisted the urge to groan and thump his head on the table. Raku was moving away from them but he didn’t want to draw her attention back over to them.

“That was a misunderstanding,” he whispered, not even trying to hide the defensiveness in his voice.  _ Of course _ she heard about that. “Tsunade cleared it.”

“Right,” Inara drawled. “All the same, I’d rather not have any  _ misunderstandings _ with my genin. No, Namiashi, you’re just going to have to deal with this yourself or find someone else.” With that, she resolutely turned away from him and glowered at her scrolls. Raidou watched her for a moment, before reaching over and gently intertwining his fingers with hers, admiring the contrast between her dark skin and his own pale color.

“We’ve had a lot of good times, Inara. Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do to -” He started, only to dive out of the way of the fist headed straight for his face and then he was scrambling down the aisle away from the fireball she’d thrown at him.

The next thing he knew he was outside and Raku was shouting after both him and Inara as the two scrambled to get away from the library before the Fire Corps and ANBU showed up.

\---

It was late afternoon before Raidou had made it back to the training grounds from his self-appointed mission of begging someone to take his team. Hiro had laughed in his face when he asked, Tsume had growled at him and told him to suck it up and Gai had given him a lecture on being a good sensei, how his genin looked up to him and basically made him feel like a heel for even considering the idea.

Raidou had headed back to the training grounds at that point.

He was pleased to note that his genin had neither left, nor wasted their time. They were in the middle of sparring when he finally made his way back onto the field and he was treated to three glares when they finally noticed his presence. He was also pleasantly surprised when Tami only looked slightly singed.

“The Hokage Tower took all that time?” Ichiro demanded, after he’d managed to knock Kimiko to the ground by throwing Tami at her. Kimiko and Tami both sat up, groaning.

“No,” Raidou said. “I had some other errands to take care of.” Tami and Ichiro both opened their mouths to shout their protests and even Kimiko looked mutinous. Raidou spoke over them quickly. “Let’s go over what you did today.” He sat down and gestured for them to do the same. Ichiro and Tami both plopped down gracelessly while Kimiko sunk into a seiza. “Kimiko, you start.”

“After you left we worked on water walking,” she told him. “We would have done tree walking, but with Tami’s chakra...fluctuations...we thought perhaps being near water instead of wood would help.”

“And how did that go?” Raidou asked, slanting a look Tami’s direction. Her leggings looked like they’d seen better days and her shoes were missing, but her shirt looked to be completely intact, if a little dirty. Considering the previous loss of entire outfits, Raidou thought it could be counted as progress.

“I fell into the river before I completely went up,” Tami reported cheerfully. “The shoes were a write off, but I didn’t like them anyway.”

Of course.

“I was the first one to make it across, sensei!” Ichiro cut in, grinning widely. “The three of us had a bet on who would be the first. These two -” he pointed at his teammates “- have to buy me dinner now!”

“Stupid, walking across the bridge doesn’t count!” Tami shouted, but she was grinning when she turned back to Raidou. “I only made it about a third of the way before I caught fire, but Kimiko and Ichiro both made it across in no time flat!”

“After lunch, we meditated,” Kimiko cut in smoothly, as though her teammates hadn’t interrupted. She looked pleased at the praise, though. “Ichiro and I were watching Tami to see if we could see any outward sign of something that could tell us if she was about to combust.” This was more initiative than Raidou had been expecting out of them. The other jounin-senseis had nothing but horror stories about how their teams never worked together and were constantly trying to one-up each other. Despite them not forming any outright rivalries, Raidou also hadn’t expected them to actively start working together to help each other out on their own.

Maybe he should leave them on their own more often.

“Tami’s eyes glow orange,” Ichiro continued. “Right before she catches fire.”

“Wait,” Raidou said. “So she did catch fire?” The three of them nodded. “Is that a spare outfit?”

“The shirt is,” Tami answered. “I figured I could save the leggings for a day when I need them more. Right now they’re more like shorts.”

“Right,” Raidou breathed. He really hoped he could figure out how to deal with her combustion issues. Life would be easier if he wasn’t having to worry about his genin potentially running around naked all the time. Kakashi had already snuck Icha Icha in his vest pocket earlier this  week. The first time Raidou had flipped through it, curious as to how it had gotten there when Tami went up in flames in front of him. Ichiro and Kimiko managed to put her out, Raidou no longer bothering to even look up, just as an academy instructor and his class had come by the training grounds on a field trip.

The ensuing chaos when the sensei had taken in the sight of his former  _ naked _ student and the reading material in Raidou’s hands was not something Raidou had ever wanted to deal with again.

“That’s a good observation, you two,” he told them. “All three of you head home for the day. Meet here tomorrow at ten thirty.” 

The three of them nodded and dispersed, chattering too quickly at each other to follow. Raidou groaned and flopped backwards, throwing an arm over his eyes.


End file.
